States of Water: A Climate Conversation with Shirin Neshat and Kaveh Madani

How often do we think about the importance of water? How have our relationships to the natural world – and the waters that flow through and sustain it – changed over time or across cultures? In March and April 2023, the World Weather Network will showcase new work by artists exploring how the languages we speak, the stories we tell, and the customs we practise everyday, shape our understanding of the natural world and our dependence on its resources.

To launch this exploration, and to coincide with the UN 2023 Water Conference (22-23 March 2023), the World Weather Network invited the newly appointed Director of the United Nations Think Tank on Water, and former Iranian politician, Kaveh Madani, to engage in a free-flowing conversation with the celebrated artist and activist Shirin Neshat about the cultural dimensions of the world’s multiple water crises.

They discuss their respective upbringings in Iran; how the country’s relationship to its environment shaped their respective careers; and how global conceptions of “nature”, “growth” and “green politics” should diversify to reflect unique ecological, social and cultural conditions in different parts of the world.

Shirin Neshat

Shirin Neshat is an Iranian visual artist who lives in New York City, known primarily for her work in film, video and photography. Her artwork centres on the contrasts between Islam and the West, femininity and masculinity, public life and private life, antiquity and modernity, and bridging the spaces between these subjects.

Since Iran has undermined basic human rights, particularly since the Islamic Revolution she has said that she has "gravitated toward making art that is concerned with tyranny, dictatorship, oppression and political injustice. Although I don’t consider myself an activist, I believe my art – regardless of its nature – is an expression of protest, a cry for humanity.”

Neshat has been recognized for winning the International Award of the XLVIII Venice Biennale in 1999, and the Silver Lion as the best director at the 66th Venice Film Festival in 2009, to being named Artist of the Decade by Huffington Post critic G. Roger Denson. Neshat is a critic in the photography department at the Yale School of Art.

Kaveh Madani

Professor Kaveh Madani is a globally recognised environmental scientist, educator, and activist, working on complex human-natural systems at the interface of science, policy, and society. He is currently the Director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH), known as the UN Think Tank on Water, and a Research Professor at the City University of New York’s Remote Sensing Earth Systems Institute (CUNY CREST).

He has previously served as the Deputy Head of Iran’s Department of Environment, Vice President of the UN Environment Assembly Bureau, and Chief of Iran’s Department of Environment’s International Affairs and Conventions Center. He held different strategic roles during his public service and led Iran’s delegation in different major intergovernmental summits, including the COP23 climate change negotiations. Before public service, he was a tenured faculty member of the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London.

Madani is an expert in developing and applying mathematical, and systems analysis models to complex problems involving water, energy, food, climate, and environment to derive policy and governance insights. He has over 300 publications and is best known for his fundamental contributions to integrating game theory and decision analysis methods into water resources management models to better capture human behaviour.

Madani is one of the top 10 climate change scientists followed on Twitter and one of the six scientists featured in the Reuters Climate Scientists Hot List. He is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and Environmental & Water Resources Institute (EWRI) and has received numerous awards and recognitions for his fundamental research contributions, teaching innovations, as well as outreach and humanitarian activities, including the New Face of Civil Engineering (ASCE), Arne Richter Award for Outstanding Young Scientists (EGU), Hydrologic Sciences Early Career Award (AGU), Walter Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize (ASCE), and Ambassador Award (AGU).

Climate Conversations

Presented by the World Weather Network, Climate Conversations brings together extraordinary international artists, designers, architects and writers with leading climate scientists, policy makers and activists, for one-to-one conversations about the climate crisis and biodiversity loss. Each conversation focuses on topics of shared interest between speakers from different cultural and disciplinary perspectives, and fosters pluralistic approaches to global challenges.

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